An Open Letter to D&D Next’s Art Department

Everyone is talking about what features they want to see in the next version of Dungeons & Dragons. Personally, though, I understand that I will very likely not see my pet mechanics in the core of the game, or even in expansions, because I’m one of those crazy kids who grew up lurking on The Forge and has some pretty fucked up ideas about games, gaming, and game design. Also, I don’t think I have anything useful to add to the dialogue until I see the direction the design is going in. I can guess, and I can suggest a direction that I think would be beneficial to the game, but I can’t really improve a design I’ve never seen. I will be much more concerned with making D&DV the best it can be and much less concerned with pigeonholing it to fit whatever I think the essence of D&D is.

So instead, I’m going to talk to another very important part of the Dungeons & Dragons experience. I’m going to talk about art. Which is a pretty hefty step away from what I normally look at, because there are times when I write enormous posts (like this one) that don’t even have pictures. I’m very much a wall-of-text blogger, so it might seem a little unorthodox that I would be as worried about the direction of the art as I am. But I am very, very, deeply concerned about the direction of the art in this game, and I would like to invite the art department, particularly those in decision-making positions, to pay close attention to what I am about to say next:

Dungeons & Dragons is still seen as a sexist game, and you are the only people in the world who can fix that.

It’s not just sexist, though. It’s sexist, it’s racist, and it’s ableist in its artistic representation of people. Now, I’ve heard all the arguments against having people of color and women depicted in the art of a fantasy role-playing game, and I think they’re all hooey. And to be fair, there has been headway made. I have seen progress, especially from the chainmail bikini era of game art.

And I’m not accusing anyone of purposefully excluding people of color, the differently abled or women from their depictions of heroic figures. Anyone who is actively trying to exclude or belittle people from their game is a dickbag, and it is very likely that will come through in the game itself (Byron Hall, I’m looking at you). What is happening is primarily blindness to the issue. So I am going to make a request, and it is my sincere hope that you, the art department responsible for the look and feel of D&D Next will take it under advisement.

First:

Women make up 52% of the world’s population. They can make up 50% of the people in your game’s art. Moreover, the exact number of pictures in which a woman is standing in an Impossible Position is 0. For every piece of art submitted, have the artist attempt to pose him or herself in the positions of the people depicted. If either person’s position is painful, that pose is very likely held by a female character whose breasts and buttocks are pressed out to increase her sexiness.

Wizards of the Coast has very clearly established that sexiness is not something they believe Dungeons & Dragons needs. If there were room for sex in D&D, the Book of Erotic Fantasy would have been updated to Fourth Edition. You specifically precluded the possibility of that happening in your licensing for a reason. If sexiness is a factor in how D&D art is chosen, something has gone terribly wrong.

Second:

Human skin comes in a lot of colors from black to white to yellow to red to brown. Human features come in a huge range of styles and types. I understand that we’re playing in a fantasy world where the various skin tones in reality may not be as prevalent. But I also know that in said fantasy world all of the monks look Asian. Even the elves.

Have some fun drawing black dudes in mage robes or brown chicks in plate mail. Evenly distribute the skin tones across the whole of your books, and the problem of racism mostly disappears (except, y’know, the “Goblins are evil because they’re green,” issue). And this doesn’t just go for the humans, guys. Elves obviously have some skin tone variation going on (Oh, hey Drizzt.). Dwarves can go from chestnut brown to fair skinned. I love the idea of charcoal-skinned halflings and a range of skin-tones for half-orcs from phthalo green to honeydew. All this does is make the art more interesting, and add depth that might otherwise be missing from the depiction of the game world.

Third:

Ableism is a tough thing to address in a role-playing game. I get that. It’s tough to be a bad-ass knight if you can’t walk. Being an amputee isn’t cool… Wait a fucking minute, yeah it is! Ahab lost a leg to a whale and was a total badass. Bran Stark is paralyzed from the waist down and he’s one of the most interesting characters in A Song of Ice and Fire. Rick Grimes loses a hand and goes batfuck crazy, but he’s one of the toughest assholes to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Making the differently abled a part of your game world is easier than it sounds. Hell, one of my players built a character whose hand had been cut off and some asshole was out there wearing it around his neck. It didn’t come with any penalties or anything, it was just a flavor thing that made him a total badass, and it was all description. Characters that are Big Damn Heroes despite having challenges above and beyond the norm are awesome, and should be shown to be so in game art.

Fourth:

This is sort of a minor point, but it’s one I’d like to make anyway: having characters of various sizes and shapes is not at all unrealistic, nor does it reduce the heroic aspect of the fantasy. Look at any successful fantasy series ever, and you’re going to find a bunch of different body shapes, because different body shapes are something we understand, something we _get_. Moreover, it doesn’t hurt to reduce the impact of stereotypical, hyper-sexualized imagery in the media you’re creating. Give me some pudgy mages and some scrawny fighters, please.

All I’m looking for, what I’m really asking you for, is to look critically at the message your art sends to the people who will be looking at it. ALL of the people who will be looking at it. Ask yourself, if you were in the shoes of a feminist, what would you think of this illustration? If you lived in a wheelchair, how would you feel about seeing nothing but able-bodied folk?

And you can argue, if you like, that this is just the opinion of a privileged white guy. Because, y’know, it is. I’m not a woman, I’m not a minority, and my only disability is depression. But I’m just the voice for a silent riot, guys. There are others like me, and there are some who have made a great show of picking apart the inherent sexism, racism and ableism of your art. And we’re speaking for a much larger group of people you will never hear from, but who feel uncomfortable playing your game because it depicts women, minorities and the differently abled as something less than the able-bodied white dudes on page after page.

Sincerely,
Kristoffer Hansen
Games Manager
Warp One Comics and Games

Further Reading:
Go Make Me a Sandwich
Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor

Bestiary of Badassery: The Vile Darkness

Before You Read Further:
Abuse is not a game. It is the most horrifying and terrible thing a person can have inflicted upon them, and real-life heroes are fighting against it every day. I do not mean any disrespect at all to the victims of abuse or the forces that are doing everything humanly possible to make it stop.
Because I believe in acting locally, if you’d like to make a donation to an association against abuse, I’d suggest you head over to WIN House. They do good work, and can always use more help.
Also, while some of the abusers below are presented as victims of a horrible monster, we should never lose sight of the fact that the real victims are the abused. My heart goes out to them, and they are in my prayers.

The Vile Darkness

There is a monster that lives in the cellar of the el’Harr farm down the road a ways from Hammerfast. The only one that knows it’s there is little Alphonse, the youngest of the el’Harr’s children; he has tried to bring it to his parents’ attention, but you know how people can be about the monsters their kids talk about. Besides, no one’s ever seen it, so it’s all in the kid’s head, right?
At night, the monster whispers things to Cody el’Harr, things that shouldn’t be whispered by any good soul to another. Cody can’t see the thing, or even hear it, really. It speaks to his mind, and the dark places in his heart.
Alphonse is bruised betimes, and he’s a quiet lad. Walks with a limp since the incident in the barn a few years back, but it hasn’t slowed him, none. He plays by himself, mostly, the imagination games of children. In his head, he wears a suit of armor and slays monsters. One monster in particular, over and over again.
And when it’s dead, Alphonse’ pa never puts hands to the boy again.

Deeds, Not Words

It was announced recently that the Book of Vile Darkness is up for the Fourth Edition treatment this year. It was one of them ore popular books for 3.5, and it started the whole “Intended for Mature Audiences” movement of D&D books that brought on such wonders as the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Book of Erotic Fantasy (heh). It was probably one of the best sourcebooks 3.5 D&D put out, but I had a few issues with it. In particular, I found the focus to be more on gruesome content than any real discussion of evil. There’s some demons and stuff in it, sure, and a lot of the spell effects are like “Fuck you, good characters! Mwah ha ha ha ha haaaaa!” but there isn’t a lot of stuff that I would throw part-and-parcel into the “evil” category.
There’s a lot of wiggle-room on the concept of “evil,” though. Is killing sentient creatures and taking their stuff “evil?” Well, I put that into a solid “Yes,” on evil, but it’s the preface for the vast majority of D&D (and other role-playing) games that you will occasionally bash in monsters’ faces to increase your own power, wealth and status. So when I need to unnerve my players a bit, when I need them to squirm a little, I have to pull out some big guns. Simply hurting people isn’t enough to get across that a bad guy is vile; that bad guy needs to hurt people in the most intimate and horrifying ways possible.
This creature is an example of the sorts of things I’ll do to make my players a touch more uncomfortable than just putting them in a 10x10 room with a hobgoblin. It’s not something for the faint of heart; this monster feeds on the fear, pain and suffering of others, and manipulates people into some of the worst betrayals a person can imagine. It reaches into the darkest places of someone’s mind and brings those things to the fore.

The Monster(s?)

The real monster is abuse. Let’s be fair, this monster is not one you’re going to throw into a random dungeon; it can’t survive there. It needs to live in someone’s home, where the potential for real emotional turmoil and trauma exists. Most importantly, it needs to find a crack, a place where the dark desires and urges run through a human mind. While a mother or father might normally love and support their children, the Vile Darkness can urge them to the unthinkable. Where a woman might love her husband unconditionally, the Vile Darkness can seep into her mind, taunting her into an horrific betrayal. And though a young man may truly love his betrothed, the Darkness can turn his mind to harm, or even murder. It would be incapable of doing these things if those emotions, those thoughts, didn’t already exist in the victim’s mind. The most monstrous aspect of this creature is its ability to bring out the monster in otherwise good people.
Discovering the Vile Darkness requires some investigation. If you want to relegate this to the realm of the Skill Challenge, feel free to do so, but I would rely more on heavy role-playing with a couple of prompted Perception and Insight rolls. And the abuse that the Darkness brings out in people doesn’t need to be physical; sexual, emotional and mental abuse all happen every day, and each comes with its own cocktail of betrayals. Complicating factors for the encounter can be as complicated as the victim of the abuse trying to protect the abuser, or another abusive situation in which the Vile Darkness has had no part (and this, truly, is more terrifying than any fantasy monster ever could be). When it turns out that the physically abusive parents on the el’Menith farm aren’t violent at the urging of a monster, but that the Darkness’ target has been Avery ven Maslia and his pretty new bride, it pushes the encounter to a different level.

The Vile Darkness		Level 3 Elite Controller
Medium		XP 300
HP 86; Bloodied 43 AC 17; Fortitude 15; Reflex 15; Will 15 Speed 6 Saving Throws +2; Action Points 1		Initiative +1 Perception +1
Traits
O Betrayal • Aura 2
A creature that starts its turn within the Vile Darkness' Betrayal Aura makes a saving throw. If the creature fails that saving throw, it is possessed until the end of the Darkness' next turn.
Standard Actions
M Incite Violence • At-Will
Attack: +8 vs. AC
Hit: 1d6 + 4 psychic damage and the target deals damage to an adjacent ally equal to their Intelligence modifier. .
R Dark Whispers • At-Will
Attack: Range 10 (ignores line of sight); +7 vs. Will
Hit: 1d10 + 5 psychic damage and the target makes a melee basic attack against an adjacent ally. If the creature is possessed, it gets a +2 power bonus to the attack. .
C Shame • At-Will
Attack: Close burst 3 (targets enemies in burst); +8 vs. AC
Hit: 3d10 + 3 psychic and shadow damage, and the target is dazed until the end of the Vile Darkness' next turn. .
Triggered Actions
Feeding on Your Pain • Recharge 6
Trigger: An creature is hit by an ally's attack. .
Effect (Free): The Vile Darkness gains hit points equal to one half of the damage dealt by the triggering attack.
Str 11 (+1)	Dex 11 (+1)		Wis 11 (+1)
Con 11 (+1)	Int 11 (+1)		Cha 11 (+1)
Alignment      Languages —
© 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This formatted statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

Art jacked from ~therook @ deviantart